


The Patriot Boy: A Secret History of Alfred F. Jones

by cultureandseptember



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Mixed Media, News Media, Social Media, nations revealed, scholarly media
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 11:52:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5868289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cultureandseptember/pseuds/cultureandseptember
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In this social media age, it is easy for history to be reduced to a few clever soundbites. During this time of great upheaval in our understanding of History, we need an overhaul of how we understand those creatures that we call 'Nations' and the people with whom they have interacted. We need to reassess our perceptions, and we need to trace the dynamic ways in which Nations formed their identities through interactions with their citizens. Perhaps, this means a redefinition of what it means to be an American." [qtd. Jonah McCall, 'Forgotten Nations']</p><p>Within is an exploration of Alfred F. Jones [National Embodiment of the United States of America] throughout his history-- from archived letters to scholarly books and articles, to college courses and the words of the Nation himself following the release of classified documents in 2015.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Patriot Boy: A Secret History of Alfred F. Jones

# A GUIDE TO THE PAPERS OF EDITH COLLINS ELDRIDGE

**A COLLECTION IN SPECIAL COLLECTIONS**

**The University of Virginia Library**  

** ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION **

**Accession Number 112432, 112432-C**

**Access Restrictions**

          There are no restrictions.

      **Use Restrictions**

          See the [University of Virginia’s Library’s use policy](http://search.lib.virginia.edu/terms.html).

**Preferred Citation**

Papers of Edith Collins Eldridge, Accession #112432, 112432-C, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

* * *

**Repository:** Special Collections, University of Virginia Archives

 **Collection Number:** 112432, 112432-C

 **Title:** Papers of Edith Collins Eldridge

 **Extent:** 109 items

 **Language:** English, French

**Acquisition Information**

Accession #112432 was purchased by the Library on December 17, 1992 from Jeffery Sellers. Accession #112432-C was donated by Alfred F. Jones.

* * *

**BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES **

Following are notes on the family taken from Lover of Liberty: A Lost Name in National Lore by Richard Alfred Eldridge.John Richard Collins married Louisa Paterson and had issue: Thomas Collins, Ursula Collins, Edith Collins, and Catherine Collins. Thomas Collins married Susannah Mary Jones in 1783 and had issue: Gilbert Collins (died age 2). Ursula Collins married Arthur Seward Jackson in 1785 and had issue Rachel Seward Jackson and Gregory Seward Jackson (died age 4). Edith Collins married George Eldridge in 1782.

**SCOPE AND CONTENT**

There are 109 items, 1774 – 1872, chiefly letters of Edith Collins Eldridge (1745 – 1830) and other various family members, including her husband George Eldridge (1742 – 1810), father John Richard Collins, and brother-in-law Arthur Seward Jackson (1755 – 1842). Other notable correspondents include Arthur Kirkland (National Embodiment of England); Alfred F. Jones (National Embodiment of the United States of America); George Caesar Jones (State Embodiment of Delaware); Francis Bonnefoy (National Embodiment of France); Gilbert Beilschmidt (National Embodiment of Prussia); Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826); Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834); George Washington (1732-1799); John Adams (1735-1826); Abigail Adams (1744-1818); Angelica Schuyler Church (1756-1804).Topics of interest include national politics and foreign affairs including the politics of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the immortality of Nations and States, the American Revolution, travel to England and France, personal and family matters.Edith Collins Eldridge was the daughter of Colonel John Richard Collins of the Continental Army.

A farmer by trade, John Collins withdrew to the family farm in Delaware after the war concluded. Edith Collins married George Eldridge, a soldier injured in the American Revolutionary War at Fort Ticonderoga. After his injury, he served in the Nation Guard, a special platoon dedicated to the protection of the National Embodiment during his stay in Philadelphia and New York. Edith Eldridge was introduced to Alfred F. Jones by her husband and maintained a steady correspondence with the man until her death.

It was Alfred F. Jones who introduced her to Thomas Jefferson. Her brother, Thomas Collins, later married Susannah Mary Jones (State Embodiment of New Jersey), though there is no correspondence between Susannah and Edith that has been found. The Eldridge archive contains correspondence from America’s first days as a country. The letters provide an intimate look into the development of a Nation and frank summations of the struggle for independence. Further, the archive supports the first and thus far, only, compendium of correspondence exchanged between the National Embodiment of the United States of America and humans.A digital exhibition drawn from these papers and the Hurst letters is [available online](Exhibition).

* * *

**CONTENT**

**_Letters_ **

> _George Eldridge to Edith Collins._

> 1776 July 30
> 
> **Images:**[Page 1](X) [Page 2](X) [Page 3](x)

> A love letter exchanged between young George Eldridge to his intended Edith Collins. Praises her quick thinking in support of her father, explains his injury at Fort Ticonderoga. Brief mention made of Declaration of Independence and George Washington's command.

 

> _Edith Collins to George Eldridge_

> 1776 October 9
> 
> **Images:** [Page 1](X) [Page 2](X) [Page 3](x)
> 
> Details an exchange between Loyalists and John Collins as well as the family travel to Philadelphia, culminating in the meeting of John Adams and John Collins, who form a tenuous friendship. Latter half of letter expresses affection for George and worry for his lack of correspondence. 

* * *

###  **TO EDITH COLLINS**

**[Unknown, October 30, 1776]**

My dearest Edith, you consume my thoughts in so many ways that I cannot speak to the sway you hold over my heart and mind. Tis not your beauty—for truly you are the very embodiment of an angel, I believe with whole heart—but your words and governed instructions that employ me so. I should not boast any of my own intelligence, for which I am rumored, for all thoughts of consequence find their origin in you and you alone. It is your voice that speaks from the recess of my mind. I seek you out again, my dearest, to employ your wit and patience, your wisdom is what I seek now. I confess myself that you are the only one to whom I can think to write given the current circumstance, not the statesmen and soldiers that surround me in every given moment but you, who will impart upon me your candid truth in how you perceive what I am to tell. I implore you to maintain your calm for all is well. As well and true as reality can be given our predicament.

Much has happened since I last was able to write you, my dearest. Upon my injury at the Fort, you well know that I travelled well with Colonel Knox [1](Knox) —who would send his regards to the Collins, with his greatest respect to you for he has told me a number of times to many to name that I am fortunate beyond reckoning— I am unable to continue with the Militia as once I did, though I feel the greatest disappointment in my own impatience with Knox’s decision to seek my reassignment. It is only after this transpired that I arrived to Manhattan. General Howe laid siege to the Long Island, took many prisoners—some of which were good friends, William Sound amongst them I fear—We escaped to White Plains, where the truest miracle occurred, but I fear for our men that were taken. General Washington requested, most humbly, that I serve in a special force—even despite my grievous injury which is not yet healed through.

I ask that you refrain from imagining the grotesque injury though I know you have a constitution not held by many women.I have met the most wondrous of creatures, my Edith, though I know not how to present the ways in which this creature is in existence. For all my wit, I can not hope to understand—though he does say that we are not meant to understand. I shall endeavor to explain: he is all that we fight for, the man whom I now guard with my very life. A tremendous caution and fear overwhelmed me when I first met him with the great presence of the General and the ADC at my back when I voiced my doubts to his identity. I fear I cannot write to an end of understanding, my dear Edith, without speaking of his manner for that is the greatest of the Truths that I cannot yet fathom out. The American states I once thought as independent, separate in character and destiny, as Delaware from Penn, yet I see in this man—with eyes as blue as the sky above your home as I remember—the whole of the American states as one whole and complete Nation. It seems, as impossible, that he is in his very essence of being, an embodiment of the whole summation of these American States together.

For a week, I have not slept for my confusion—a boy, for that may be all he is in our understanding of time and age, no more than seventeen summers perhaps, is, as explained by the General all of our hopes in one person. Tis rumored, that the Toris too have such a creature. So, too, the Hessians, though these are whispered nightmare words among the ADCs. Such knowledge of these creatures is kept secret, yet I now act as a guard [2](Guard). I cannot communicate how my spirit is discontent and yet content at such a notion. I can not speak more clear, dearest, for fear of interception, but I need your words to rest my mind. Even as I write this letter, I am quivering with the shock of what I have learned—into the bluest eyes of a home I have not visited since I have left you my dearest Edith. If you look to the skies over your home you will see what I have seen, then think of a human body to encompass it. Only half will it be understood, ever, I fear.I am desperate for need of your counsel. I thank you from the deepest, deepest tenderness of my heart for I cannot know my own good fortune well enough to know you in any way—most specifically the way of the heart and mind.

Ever yours,  George Eldridge

  1. For background to this letter see G. Eldridge to Knox, September 25, 1776, note 1.
  2. Most authorities on Alfred F. Jones’ role in the war agree that General Washington sought to protect him through secrecy until the arrival of Francis Bonnefoy in 1777. (Houser,  _Secret History of the Nations_ , 342).



 

* * *

 

> _Edith Collins to George Eldridge._

> 1776 November 17
> 
> **Images:**[Page 1](X) [Page 2](X) [Page 3](x) [Page 4](X)

> Discusses her understanding of George's cryptic letter, arriving at the conclusion that she "should like to send a message to such a being, if they so exist." First known correspondence to Alfred F. Jones enclosed.

 

> _Edith Collins to the American States_

> 1776 November 17
> 
> **Images:**[Page 1](X) [Page 2](X)
> 
> A letter of sympathy to the hitherto unnamed "American States" for the suffering through which he must be going. Discusses dissent between Loyalists and Revolutionaries, cites her loyalty to the Revolution. 

* * *

###  **TO EDITH COLLINS**

**[New Castle, December 15, 1776]**

Dr Miss Collins

Your welcome letter of the 17th of November came to my hands yesterday evening and I confess my joy at your unexpected correspondence. I have never exchanged letters in this manner before for I-- as I have been told by many-- am impatient, too impatient for the practical exchange of written word. I think I am a better speaker than writer. It was only through the encouragement of my father, for that is what I have taken to calling the great General, that I have sat down to writ a response. 

As your George has said, you are ~~awesome~~ kind to send such a letter to a person like me. He speaks often of you and of your sincerity. You called me a person in your letter--I do question at times if that is ~~the~~ right ~~word~~ , but you may call me person if you wish. Most persons call me Alfred. The General and Others say that I ~~got~~ must have a last name by which to be known, but I think it a silly notion. Before this began--the fight, battles--I was known by another name. with each body that falls on the battlefield, I can see that the General is right. Many are right. My name will change. ~~Do you think it to be ungrateful~~ if Do you, in your sincerity, believe that I am doing ill to a brother if I no longer share his name? Is he still a brother for all that he has done? ~~Am I wr~~  You are not obligated to answer these questions. I have not found the answers yet. I do not think I will.

I congratulate you and George of your betrothal, as what I hope to be an Affectionate friend. He is a good man. If I am in Delaware, I will seek you out. Perhaps I can have some of that bread George speaks so often of? 

### 

A.

* * *

 

###  **TO ALFRED**

**[New York, January 15, 1777]**

I know not how to respond to your queries for I cannot hope to comprehend the difficulties you have and will face at the hands of the Brother, the identity of which I can only presume. Is it ill of a Brother to change his name when harm has done unto him? I can not know. I fear my knowledge is so limited to the disputes of Sisters-- the answer for which may be different for those of my kind. My SisterMary often is harsh in her word but cares deeply. I can not know. Though I have heard of the Victory at Trenton and Princeton. I know too well that the British will take our Land here in the Delaware. We here know your name well, and we speak it often-- the name by which you are best known, and will be known in Histories far beyond our knowledge. The name you choose, whatever nom that may be, must be your own decision-- taken by your own solitary volition and by no others. 

Write me at your will. I boast no judgementShould you have need. With the most Affectionate care, stay well. 

E. Collins.


End file.
